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An anonymous reader writes "The Stanford Law Review Online has just published an Essay by Yale's Stephen L. Carter entitled 'The Iraq War, the Next War, and the Future of the Fat Man.' He provides a retrospective on the War in Iraq and discusses the ethical and legal implications of the War on Terror and 'anticipatory self-defense' in the form of drones and targeted killings going forward. He writes: 'Iraq was war under the beta version of the Bush Doctrine. The newer model is represented by the slaying of Anwar al-Awlaki, an American citizen deemed a terror threat. The Obama Administration has ratcheted the use of remote drone attacks to unprecedented levels — the Bush Doctrine honed to rapier sharpness. The interesting question about the new model is one of ethics more than legality. Let us assume the principal ethical argument pressed in favor of drone warfare — to wit, that the reduction in civilian casualties and destruction of property means that the drone attack comports better than most other methods with the principle of discrimination. If this is so, then we might conclude that a just cause alone is sufficient to justify the attacks. ... But is what we are doing truly self-defense?'"

Please I have the politics section not on my frontpage for a reason. Hey if you really want to read slashdot's political stories that is fine but does anyone here really believe that this belongs under "technology" and not Politics?Really?

[...] but does anyone here really believe that this belongs under "technology" and not Politics?
Really?

It's "morality" as a consequence of "technolgy", the newly acquired opportunity to kill opponents without too much "political" risk. No body bags or television footage of dead soldiers from downed Blackhawk (e.g. in Mogadishu). I think it is a very relevant story.

Its still a political story, its just one where they have a single piece of tech in there which does NOT make it a tech story. They could just as easily do the same thing with mercs (and probably do I wonder how many "suicide" and "accidental" deaths of those that mouthed off weren't someone taking care of a problem) but this is all about the political implications of having a government that can kill anyone at anytime. Well guess what? Its been that way for many years now, you piss the wrong official off its trivial to use you CC history to make a damned accurate schedule of where you are gonna be and when, you could have an accident, suicide, failed car jacking, the possibilities of making someone that pisses you off go bye bye when you have THAT level of political power is staggering, look at the Stasi which is what I'd argue those in power ultimately want.

But all of that is political, its the insiders deciding which direction they want to steer the land under their control. Just sticking the word drone in it doesn't make it a tech story anymore than that hit on the Iranian nuke scientist was a tech story because the mine they used was magnetic. We have sections for a REASON people, its so those of us that don't want to deal with sections don't have to and sticking stories where they don't belong just breaks the whole thing.

Anwar An-Awlaki was not a dictator.He hated the USA and may or may not have had tea with Bin Laden and a few other people with Al Qaeda.

The US government has presented zero evidence that he helped terrorists commit acts of terror, or that he committed such acts himself. As far as we know, he was murdered because he didn't like the USA, had the balls to say so, and people actually listened to him and agreed with him.

As far as I'm concerned the USA became a tyranny the moment they decided to kill him.And Americans should be ashamed of themselves for letting their government get away with this. I know most Americans will say they don't agree with their government and this assassination, but these same people pay taxes to that government, which enables it to do what it does. They're part of the problem, even if they don't like to be. For this reason, simply saying "I don't approve" is not enough - Americans should have taken action against the US government and specifically those who ordered this assassination. Try pressing charges, for one. Or if that doesn't work due to some sad legal loophole that lets the President do whatever he wants, try asking foreign nations (e.g. European countries) to put pressure on the US gov.

If An-Awlaki had been killed on US soil I wouldn't care, but that happened abroad.I strongly oppose the US government myself although I don't associate with terrorists (then again, seeing as the US government's of "terrorist" is so broad it can fit almost anybody who doesn't lick the President's boots, maybe I do). What happens if one day I open a blog that is aimed at criticizing the US government and I get a lot of supporters? Should I also worry about having my house blown up by an American drone, even though I live in Europe, because my activism may threaten the political careers of some fascists in the US government?

We hear about the threat of North Korea, Iran, China and other nations all the time (and I'm not saying these nations are not threats), yet the USA, which actually takes unjustified military action against foreign nations, always remains below the radar.I wonder how many Canadian and European politicians and media groups the White House is paying off.

If An-Awlaki had been killed on US soil I wouldn't care, but that happened abroad.

If he'd been killed on US soil, it would have been murder (probably, depending on details - the way he was killed was definitely murder by US standards), and the people involved (quite possibly up to the President) would have been in serious trouble.

Note that even by the RoE implied by the new NDAA, killing him in Yemen (or whatever hell-hole he wa sin) was illegal. Obama's executive order allowing it was questionably at best...

I've been trying to figure something in my head, and maybe you can help me out, yeah?When a person is insane, as you clearly are, do you know that you're insane?Maybe you're just sitting around, reading "Guns and Ammo", masturbating in your own feces, do you just stop and go, "Wow! It is amazing how fucking crazy I really am!"?Yeah. Do you guys do that?

I agree that while the war in Iraq could never be considered as self defense, the justification about Afganistan does have some merit. However, I also think that there was probably an element of opportunistic regime change too. Let's face it, the 911 attackers were mostly from Saudi Arabia and Osama bin Laden was eventually found in Pakistan (with no thanks to the Pakistan government) and yet we managed to refrain from actually invading those two countries. I guess the difference was that those countries allowed us to enter them in force. I presume Afganistan would not (did someone actually ask them?).

Iraq was absolutely about regime change, and was a serious misstep IMHO. A lot of countries around the world rallied behind the US after 911, but were caught off guard by the sudden posturing by the US against Iraq about WMDs. It came out of the blue, and seemed to be quite unprovoked. A lot of genuine goodwill towards the country evaporated, almost overnight. The real shame is that while the war in Iraq may have divided the nation, the reaction to the criticism by other countries seemed to unite everyone again. Look at the strong feelings that are still prevalent towards France because they dared to question the existence of WMDs, even though they turned out to be right.

The people who still harbor a grudge against the French seem to be as arrogant as a bloodly Frenchman!

Then again, the war in Iraq was at least based on the technicalities of Iraq breaking the UN resolutions.

Why? Because Iraq wouldn't produce all those weapons of mass destruction that they didn't actually have? While the US kept referring to Resolution 1441, a lot of other countries argued that there was not any proof of significant non-compliance - especially enough to justify 8 years of war.

The 9/11 attack is still considered a crime here and not an act of war. The reason for the rallying behind the Americans was probably something to do with military contracts, rents, investments and economic support, while fully knowing who is going to pay the cost in blood.

No way! There was genuine heartfelt grief for the events that happened on September 11, even from some countries that were not traditionally supporters of the US. When I said that "other countries rallied behind the US" I was referring to public support. The public doesn't care about military contract or economic support. They saw a people who were in shock and morning and they wept for them.

I don't have a faintest idea why those anti-war protestors protested against the war in Iraq while sleeping through the actions in Afghanistan. From my perspective they simply didn't get it.

I find it amazing that you think that allegedy breaking a technicality of a UN resolution can be justification for war while killing thousands of civilians in a horrendous act is not. Either all those anti-war protesters were wrong, or you are wrong. I'm thinking that it is you.

Look up the minerals under Afghanistan friend, its a fricking motherload of untapped mines just waiting to be exploited by Halliburton and friends! Sorry friend but there hasn't been a war since WWII (which FDR ignored the will of the people and purposely started shit with both Germany and Japan despite the majority wanting to stay the hell out of it and by doing so I'd argue he helped the USSR become the powerhouse it became by not letting Germany and the Russians kill each other) that somebody up high was

The part about minerals is nonesense, it's not enough to warrant the military expenditure. Afganistan has been a strategic crossroad for 8,000yrs (and has had mines for even longer), there is one ancient Afgan city (forget the name) that has been levelled 800 times in the last 7,000yrs. In the old days it was silk and spice from the far east that gave Afghanistan its stratigic importance, today its strategic value is due to the oil and gas pipelines from the Caspian sea. It's also interesting to look at a m

To me the line between self-defense, and self-offense, is reactive vs proactive. From that standpoint, Afghanistan is self-defense (though arguably, using drones *way out of proportion* to the original attack) and Iraq was a pre-emptive offensive war- and that's even IF you believe the government really believed in what they were saying about Iraq to begin with.

I personally agree with Augustine of Hippo- that wars should not only be limited to self defense- but should be limited to fighting on your own territory against an invasion. From that standpoint, the only legal use of drones would be as automated security guards on the border in an area where there are no checkpoints- and limited by GPS programming to that area.

I'll just drop this [snopes.com] little gem here. It is quite clear that either most everyone in the government was lying, or it was really believed that he could be a major threat. Al Gore even said in 2002 that he knew Saddam had stores of chemical and biological weapons. Now, whether certain parts of the government deceived other parts is an open question I won't get into, but Saddam himself was doing everything in his power to make it look like he was a threat. Every reasonable examination points to the government as a whole honestly believing he was a major threat in a region that possesses massive amounts of economic resources and in some cases nuclear weapons which could lead to catastrophic disaster should he ever choose to act.

In hindsight, of course, we know better (hence all the "Bush lied and just wanted the oil"... the oil we never actually got, of course: Iraq's production has gone down since the invasion). At the time? No one did. Whether the actions were justified even given what we thought we knew at the time: well, again, I won't get into that, as it is pretty messy. I will just say that retrospect offers amazingly clear vision.

It is quite clear that either most everyone in the government was lying, or it was really believed that he could be a major threat.

I will go with a different interpretation. Although very similar to the "lying" option.

I'll say that they were "blustering" and "posturing" against a subject that the vast majority of voters would say was "not good".

My pessimistic point of view is that those people were doing so in an attempt to distract the public from other events (said events being less favourable to the person blustering) or to make themselves look as tough as their political opponents at the time.

... but Saddam himself was doing everything in his power to make it look like he was a threat.

More blustering and posturing. This time on Saddam's part.

Every reasonable examination points to the government as a whole honestly believing he was a major threat in a region that possesses massive amounts of economic resources and in some cases nuclear weapons which could lead to catastrophic disaster should he ever choose to act.

I disagree with that. I still think it was the posturing and blustering that so many politicians involve themselves in.

The REAL question is whether the people making those statements were willing to take the political risk of committing the USofA's military.

Talk is cheap.Soldiers coming home in boxes is very expensive.

At the time? No one did.

I will disagree with that as well.

There were worldwide protests AGAINST our invasion.

The protests were so bad that almost none of our allies going into Afghanistan joined us in our Iraq invasion.

We sent 150,000 troops.England sent 46,000 troops.Australia sent 2,000 troops.

Everyone else sent a total of under 2,000 troops.

Talk is cheap.Dead troops are expensive.No one else believed the talk enough to risk the political expense of dead troops.

I will just say that retrospect offers amazingly clear vision.

No. It was pretty clear at the time. As evidenced by all those countries that did NOT participate. Even though Iraq is a LOT closer to them (and would have an easier time striking them) than the USofA.

The protests were so bad that almost none of our allies going into Afghanistan joined us in our Iraq invasion.

We sent 150,000 troops.
England sent 46,000 troops.
Australia sent 2,000 troops.

Everyone else sent a total of under 2,000 troops.

Talk is cheap.
Dead troops are expensive.
No one else believed the talk enough to risk the political expense of dead troops.

US population 307,006,550 and at 150,000 troops sent, 1 soldier sent for every 2,027 residents.
UK population 62,218,761 and at 46,000 troops sent, 1 soldier sent for every 1,353 residents.
Australia population 22,328,800 and at 2,000 troops sent, 1 soldier sent for every 11,164 residents.

Looks to me like the UK supported the war even more than the US did using your figures.

>No. It was pretty clear at the time. As evidenced by all those countries that did NOT participate.> Even though Iraq is a LOT closer to them (and would have an easier time striking them) than the USofA.

Think is, it was pretty clear from the perspective of, say, Beligum, France or Ukraine. It wasn't very clear on Main Street, Hicksville, USA.

The communications and culture gap that this has wedged between the US and the rest of th

Iraqi crude oil production jumped to the highest level in at least 20 years, or more than 3 million barrels a day, said Hussain al-Shahristani, deputy prime minister for energy affairs.

Iraq holds the fifth-biggest natural-gas reserves in the Middle East and the world’s fifth- largest crude deposits, according to BP Plc data that include Canadian oil sands.

“Iraq’s crude production will rise to 3.4 million barrels a day by the end of next year, and exports will rise to 2.6 million barrels a day, including 175,000 barrels from fields in the northern Kurdish region, next year from a current average of 2.2 million barrels of oil a day,” he said.

How much Iraqi oil were U.S. corporations getting access to before the invasion? How much after?

The Iraqis were NEVER going to attack us. The doctrine is a lie.The Taliban / Pashtuns were NEVER going to attack us. The doctrine is a lie.Al Qaeda was an is a huge threat and needs an asymmetric warfare response to its tactics.Never forget that we adopted the Blitzkrieg and our modern army's systems from the Nazis all we needed to become the monster wee defeated was a president to fucking stupid to know that he was a fascist ( in the classical Mussolini definition ) and a people to complacent and stupid to know that we had been cooped from within.

I don't think it's too much about any particular president, fascism just needs mega corporations with government in its pocket. Obama is continuing the Bush/Cheney agenda just fine, because it's the marching orders.

Heck, given the so-called "visa applications" of the original 9-11 hijackers, I'd say a review of *domestic* customs and visitor visa policy and procedures would be my first action- something NEITHER the Obama nor the Bush administrations undertook. Not a single one of the 20 should ever have gotten a student visa to begin with.

I have no idea why this is modded troll. The first two are practically indisputable. The 3rd is debatable, but not an unreasonable proposition.

I WISH I could say the 4th had no merit whatsoever, but I don't think that would be very honest. It's fairly clear that the whole leadup to the Iraq war was was a fabrication directed from the top. Not only were no WMDs found, but nothing that could have been misinterpreted as WMDs was found.

That last is incorrect- they did find some old gas canisters, labeled in cyrilic, manufactured in Germany, with an expiration date of 1986. So something that could have been misinterpreted as WMDs, WAS found.

"wee"..."to" (instead of too)..."was an is"... and of course, Godwinning the thread. Yeah, looks like it deserves a troll moderation to me. Flamebait might be more accurate, but either way. Also, as the AC above me mentions, Taliban were official sponsors of Al Qaeda, so they did, in effect, attack the US. Don't know how the hell you could consider that part of what he said "indisputable." No one else does.

Meanwhile, the Taliban WAS foolish to have anything to do with Al-Queda, but did sever ties with them. It's fairly clear that Al-Queda never considered itself subject to the Taliban's orders. Prior to that, the U.S. itself had ties with Al-Queda. Shall we invade ourselves? Perhaps we should declare the CIA a domestic enemy and send the drones to take them out.

I spent seven months in Kandahar City as part of ISAF. I say this so you know that I have seen the ground truth, not just whatever story comes out of whatever news outlet you care to believe.

The Taliban were providing direct aid and sanctuary to the people who carries out the 9/11 attacks, and then refused to hand them over for prosecution - or indeed, to enforce any limits on their activities in any way. This makes that regime an active accessory to international terrorism and indeed a legitimate threat.

On top of that, I cannot imagine any group of people less suited to govern a nation than the Taliban. During my tour, a couple of Taliban chose to douse a group of Afghan schoolgirls with concentrated acid, killing some, and horribly disfiguring the others - for the crime of attending school. Not a Western-funded school; an Afghan-started, Afghan-operated school teaching girls to read. This sort of despicable and flatly inhuman act was Taliban policy. There is NOTHING good about the Taliban. They are bigoted narco-thugs who actively seek to erase any sign of civilization, law, and order in the attempt to eliminate opposition to their drug farming slavery campaigns. The Afghan campaign was, is, and remains a just war.

The crying shame of the Bush administration was that, instead of applying a full-court-press to Afghanistan following the initial defeat of the Taliban and seeing the country Marshall Planned back to some form of stability, they took their eyes off the ball to go adventuring in Iraq. This allowed the Taliban to re-invent themselves as an insurgency, rebuild, and become a destabilizing force that has slowed reconstruction to a crawl.

Although the world does not morn the passing of Saddam, Iraq was completely unjustified and the diversion of resources away from Afghanistan is, as far as I'm concerned, criminal. Afghanistan is NOT Iraq.

Because US foreign policy during the 80's was framed within an entirely different landscape. In hindsight helping the Taliban was a bad, bad idea. Our understanding of the Taliban's MO may have been wildly different back then. And at any rate, nothing trumped the perceived danger of the USSR.

At the time, the Taliban were not very well understood. They had only been in power a short while, and they were the cousins (in many cases quite literally) of the Mujaheddin who we had supported during the Soviet occupation. There is also a school of thought that if you make someone into a complete pariah, you lose the opportunity to influence their future choices and help them change their ways toward something more acceptable.

It is also worth noting that Afghanistan had been locked in civil war for almos

The Taliban constantly pressured the local populace to grow poppy and pot. It was how they financed all their operations. Being Taliban has WAY more to do with drugs than ideology (although you cannot separate the Pashtun from Pashtunwali)

That "the Taliban eliminated poppy farming" trope is a myth. The Taliban eliminated COMPETITION in poppy farming.

ISAF left the poppy farmers alone as a matter of policy, because it meant depriving a farmer of what little livelihood he had left. We pushed alternative crops (wheat, grapes, pomegranates) very hard, and where the security situation was good the farmers would happily take up the alternate crops (poppy farming is backbreaking manual labour) the Taliban were always keen t apply pressure to get the farmers growing poppy again.

There is no way this can be considered self-defense. Defense by definition is stopping an aggressor.

So, when a SWAT team shoots someone who has already killed people, has said he's going to kill more people, and shows every sign of preparing to do just that, that's self defense (of the inevitable victims), or not?

How is that different than using lethal force to stop al-Awlaki, who was involved in numerous deaths (and the attempt to kill hundreds in Detroit), swore he's keep doing it, and was haning out with people training, financing, and arming along those lines? He and the guys he was in the middle

The real question is ofcourse if you would allow an other country to send drones into american soil to kill americans that they think are a threat. The answer is the same in every country. Drones is only allowed in one direction...

The real question is ofcourse if you would allow an other country to send drones into american soil to kill americans that they think are a threat

No, the real question is would the US deliberately allow a group of people responsible for many terrorism deaths, and responsible for a recent attempt to kill hundreds of people in and below an approaching commercial aircraft, to continue to operate, recruit, train, and murder they way around....

Posada has been convicted in absentia in Panama, of involvement in various terrorist attacks and plots in the Americas, including: involvement in the 1976 bombing of a Cuban airliner that killed seventy-three people; admitted involvement in a string of bombings in 1997 targeting fashionable Cuban hotels and nightspots; involvement in the Bay of Pigs invasion; and involvement in the Iran-Contra affair (...)
On September 28, 2005 a U.S. immigration judge ruled that Posada cannot be deported, finding that he faces the threat of torture in Venezuela.[18] Likewise, the US government has refused to send Posada to Cuba, saying he might face torture.[17] His release on bail on April 19, 2007 had elicited angry reactions from the Cuban and Venezuelan governments...

So this is an ACTIVE terrorist that the US would let walk, just because they fucking feel like. Sorry for breaking your bubble.

The way the law works is that the police attempt to capture the suspect and bring them in for trial. If during the capture attempt the suspect takes an aggressive act like shooting at the police the police are allowed to return fire in self defense. You don't send the SWAT team in as an execution squad.

So, when a SWAT team shoots someone who has already killed people, has said he's going to kill more people, and shows every sign of preparing to do just that, that's self defense (of the inevitable victims), or not?

No, that's not self defense. In that case, unless the suspect was immediately threatening the SWAT team there to execute the warrant or another innocent, if they shoot him they're in serious trouble. If he has a gun to somebody's head or pointed at the team, they can drop him. But even if they know he's already blown up a dozen crowded churches and they find him with blueprints of the church he said he's targeting next, a van full of ANFO, and a manifesto announcing his intent to light it up in 30 minutes time, they'd better take him alive unless there are lives in immediate danger or they'll be facing charges. So, if I understand your purposed case correctly, that is not self-defense.

Agreed - In at least some recent cases the US has been taken the only steps that are available and effective for mitigating a very real and dangerous threat. I wasn't trying to challenge the premise, just a very flawed analogy. Perhaps a better one would be taking out a sniper who has so thoroughly barricaded himself in a tower - Maybe even one with a guarded, privately owned first floor denying access to response teams - that he cannot possibly be reached any other way before he manages to start (or cont

The point about torture is well taken. Torture is NEVER justified. Not only does it not produce useful information (people will say anything under torture) its use does immense harm to your cause. It is very, very difficult for a torturer to lay claim to the moral high ground.

So we agree there.

But having had first-hand experience with UAV strikes, I am a big fan. Partially because UAVs are very good at minimizing collateral damage; they use precision munitions with a very small footprint. You get orders of magnitude less damage (of all kinds) than you do with big stick munitions like air strikes or cruise missiles.

But the true value of a UAV is that it allows you to be patient, take your time, and ensure that the target really is what you think it is and that conditions - all conditions - are ideal for the shot. I can't tell you the number of times when I saw UAVs with legit targets NOT shoot because the identity of the target was in question or because the risk of collateral damage too great. And with no jet jockey hopped up on amphetamines itching to drop his bombs in the air (and the sole determinant of if he drops or not) you instead get careful and reasoned opinion on go/no go from a panel of experts, legal and otherwise.

With nobody from your side at risk, attacks need not be made on snap decisions in the heat of battle by people scared for their lives. Instead, the decisions are made by safe, clear-thinking minds with more on their minds than just killing.

Get this straight: the people being targeted are very, very bad men. They are personally responsible for the death and maiming of hundreds upon hundreds of people. And not just soldiers (who one could attempt to make the case for being, in some sense, "legitimate targets" for their actions) but mostly, in fact, innocents.

There is no doubt in my mind that killing these individuals reduces the amount of death and suffering in the world. I regard their killing with no more regret than I would the excising of a cancerous tumor.

And the fact that they can be killed without risking the lives of "the good guys" (American or not) nor innocents, is something to be celebrated.

There is no denying that soldiers have, in the heat of the moment, made terrible errors that has resulted in the deaths of innocents. Every one of those deaths is a tragedy. I reject the notion of "acceptable collateral damage" as do many of my peers. These strikes are a way to do that. I never once saw a UAV strike that hit an innocent. That does not mean that it never happened (although I have no firsthand knowledge of any, nor, for that mater, rumours) and Murphy's Law being what it is, it is unrealistic to expect that there will never be a mistake. But I CAN state that the time a UAV buys you for careful analysis and consideration of the target before committing has, at the very least, enormously reduced the number of errors.

Until bad men stop doing bad things, I call this "progress".

It is true that we stand on a slippery slope. There is a risk that the political body that provides the authority for strikes may expand the selection of targets beyond those of the very bad men who are currently targeted, to targets for whom the targeting criteria are more nebulous. It is right and good that we as a society question the who, when, where, and why of these strikes, and it is the duty of every citizen to ensure that they participate in the political process and keep a grip on those who are, quite literally, calling the shots. And I assure you that those making the final "shoot/no shoot" call take their responsibilities very seriously and do not treat it as "a video game". I expect this will continue.

So, do you think that the SWAT team who kills a US citizen who has been killing lots of people and is about to kill more, is violating the constitution?

Emphasis of course mine.

It depends on your definition of "about to kill more", and it changed between your two posts. In your first post, he was "preparing to kill more", in your second he is "about to kill more". And in that line is whether or not the SWAT team is justified in killing the suspect.

If they raid his house and find bomb making supplies, arms, etc...but the guy is otherwise non-violent at that point in time, you're goddamn right they're violating th

The problem is that we use rockets launched from drones. And those rockets take out an entire building when we are "targeting" one person.

There is no way this can be considered self-defense./blockquote>Not only that, but worse. Innocent children die in these "Preventive warfare" strikes (to use the terminology of TFA).

Using one bullet to kill one guy AND NO ONE ELSE would be "assassination". And if the USofA wants to support that, that's one thing.

Using one HELLFIRE rocket to take out a building with the one guy you wanted dead... and a few other people in his family... and a few other families with children... That's a military strike on a defenseless civilian population.

Relatively light collateral damage? What is that? I don't think the families friends of the innocents killed would see this as being 'light'. I don't think anyone that has respect for the lives of their fellow man would see this as 'light' so please, what's your definition of 'light' collateral damage?

"Why of course the people don't want war. Why should some poor slob on a farm want to risk his life in a war when the best he can get out of it is to come back to his farm in one piece? Naturally the common people don't want war neither in Russia, nor in England, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. But, after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the peacemakers for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country." - Hermann Goering

Of course, Goering was speaking in a time of conscripted armies... people are happier nowadays to send others to war. The systematic problem is that there is a huge profit to be made from war, and so the people who would profit will find ways to drag the country to war. The vast majority of people have nothing to gain from war. Smedley Butler proposed several ways to fix the system: [wikipedia.org]

1. Making war unprofitable
2. Acts of war to be decided by those who fight it
3. Limitation of militaries to self defence

Interesting ideas. There was another interesting proposal that I once saw on slashdot: insist that every war must be fully funded ie. when a war is declared, then an immediate tax must be enacted to pay for all of running costs, and for all of the long term medical and care costs of all the soldiers who are injured. I suspect that would make the war cheerleaders think twice.

Let me clarify for you then what General Lee said. War is supposed to be something that you do only for the extream cases. If one side has it easy they never want to come to the negotiation table. Lets take the Civil War where that quote is from. If both the North and the South could have just pressed a button and eliminated a city without ever seeing the death and carnage involved to wipe it out. Both sides would just keep pressing buttons until they were all dead. The Horror of war that both sides ha

It's been kind of interesting to watch the differences of culture here. Our doctrine of trying not to cause "civilian" casualties is seen as attempting to be noble and of a military/cultural doctrine that grew out of European warfare and mentality. The Geneva Convention sort of works with a european land war because most of the cultures have at least some common stance on morality and ethics. I've often said that outside of Europe the Geneva Convention need not apply, because it doesn't. The cultures ar

IMHO, any preemptive military action is damned difficult to justify as self-defense.

However, I cannot agree with the stated argument that poses this question to start with:

From the summary:

Let us assume the principal ethical argument pressed in favor of drone warfare â" to wit, that the reduction in civilian casualties and destruction of property means that the drone attack comports better than most other methods with the principle of discrimination. If this is so, then we might conclude that a just cause alone is sufficient to justify the attacks...

Bush is blamed as the source in this essay, but he was just the most recent and blatant example since WWII.Think about it...we can blame WWII on Pearl Harbor, but since winning that one, we started becoming more meddlesome globally.Korean War(War on Communism)-we got run outVietnam War(War on Communism)-we got run outGlobal(War on Drugs)-we are losing that oneGlobal(War on Terror)-we lost that one as soon as we declared it a 'War'Not to mention Panama, but we did have one winning moment in the clusterfuck of Granada!

And we are continuing that decades old losing streak in the Middle East to this day.

North Korea, with Russian equipment, mostly overran south Korea prior to US involvement. Then the US overran most of north Korea, then China got involved and it settled in the middle, with the US still maintaining bases in South Korea. South Korea is relatively 'free', and North Korea is still pretty screwed up. That's not getting 'run out', in contrast to Vietnam.

Korea would probably be less screwed up than North Korea had the US not gotten involved. China wouldn't feel like it needed a dysfunctional p

The big question is what will happen when the shoe is on the other foot? When another country decides that one of our citizens is a threat, do they have the right to level their home with a drone or cruise missile? If the neighbours get wiped out in the process, are they just collateral damage?

The situation in Iran and North Korea have been made much worse by the war in Iraq(and Libya as well). The Ahmadinejad government would not be NEARLY as willing to risk their domestic standing(which is getting worse as the oil embargo hits, as the government often buys popularity with oil revenues) if it thought there wasn't a lot to gain by pursuing nuclear weapons. However, after seeing what happened in Iraq when Saddam DID give up his WMDs, and what happened with North Korea after they tested a nuclear weapon, the regime realizes that the best way to protect itself was to pursue WMDs at all costs.

Bush picked Iraq out of his "axis of evil" precisely because they were the country that was least able to defend itself(at least in a conventional sense). He wanted to score a cheap political victory and he did so by starting a war he thought would maybe last 6 weeks. And more recently Gadafi, who ditched his WMD program, is now dead as well. The message to dictators is clear, want to stay in power? Get weapons. THe world is a far more dangerous place because the man-child of a president decided he wanted to play army.

We don't think to oppose the pursuit of criminals by our police. That's effectively what has happened to the terrorists. This is made much easier with the drone war because we don't take the same sort of causalities. We just play whack-o-mole with the terrorists. And assuming we can manage the politics, we can logistically sustain the campaign indefinitely.

I'm not saying we should or shouldn't. I think he's right in saying that if we don't oppose it soon it will just become an institution like the drug war. This thing that sits there and we do but we don't actually think about it. It just happens. It has it's own momentum, budget, and everyone just expects it to keep rolling along for various reasons forever.

It's possibly too late to stop it already. The CIA has built it into their budget and that is one of the harder budgets to penetrate.

I'm torn... I don't want to fight anyone or kill anyone. But of course I recognize that if people are going out of their way to kill me or people I care for then they must themselves be engaged and destroyed. The whole fat man thin man situation is somewhat confusing in that we're not really dealing with any fat men. It's all thin men... lots of them. It's a very target rich environment. And we're capable of icing them with a high degree of efficiency. But then there's blow back, reprisal, revenge... it just this endless struggle to balance an enemy's fear and hatred. I don't want to be hated. But I do want to be feared if only because I think it will make me safer.

Fear might not be the right term. Respect would be a better term. And i don't mean respect as in liked or admired. I mean respect in the same way you respect a tidal wave, the sun, or a mountain. You don't mess with these forces. They will break you if you don't respect them. That's how I want my nation regarded. Like the mountain, I don't have any ill will against anyone else on the planet. But don't mess with my people or I'm going to find a reason for you to change your mind. Lets just not go there. Everyone go to their little corners and swear peace. First bastard that breaks the peace gets pounded into the ground like a tent peg.

...the real problem is making enemies faster than you can kill them. One could start to argue that you need to kill those who 'could' kill you too - then we'd truly have never-ending war... until some radical nation just decides to end it all, and bring about mutually assured destruction.

It is self offense maybe. It is not defense; as you said "those who WOULD kill you" so you are striking 1st and by definition that is not defense. If they declare war/intent then that is the beginning of an attack (although only formal) therefore you can take the defense. Yes, one could interpret "would" in other ways but we are in the context of modern insane geopolitics so that means "would" is purely presumptive and exaggerated or false.

In a war of attrition, he who has the largest force *after* force multipliers and natural resources are taken into account, wins. Destruction is NOT mutually assured, unless you are talking about 100% equal forces.

For a war of attrition, the United States is almost unbeatable. Our force multiplying technology plus our natural resources means that in any given war of attrition, we could beat the rest of the planet combined.

Let me rephrase that as "Kill those who would kill you for invading their homes, establishing oppressive regimes and exploiting your country's resources." Who is defending themselves against whom here, exactly? Pick up a history book and read for yourself which two nations put the vast majority of weapons into the hands of those people the US is now remotely blasting the shit out of, and who trained them and essentially funded them for decades. Hint: It is the same two who on several occasions very nearly t

The question posed was whether it was really "self-defense." This is an important question because the UN Charter allows nation-states to take action in self-defense." Thus every tinpot dictator, power-mad army, or simply state that otherwise wants to use violence without the sanction of the security council--i.e. what would otherwise be an illegal war--claims that their attacks are motivated by self-defense.

So if the U.S. wants to be able to target people in drone strikes (or otherwise, e.g. Osama Bin Laden) in what would otherwise be illegal acts of war committed within the territory of a foreign nation with which we are not at war, we have to be able to justify it as self-defense. Otherwise, it's illegal. If it's illegal, nobody can stop it, but it still undermines the power of the United Nations to declare certain wars illegal--which makes it harder to respond to illegal wars in the future, easier for warmongers to justify aggressive wars, etc...

Of course, the flipside of that is that every time someone takes a warlike act, calls it self-defense, and gets away with it, that expands the boundaries of what "self-defense" means on the international stage.

At any rate, this whole debate is why the Security Council passed the resolution they did for the second Iraq war--it was deliberately ambiguous, so that the United States could claim the war was approved by the security council (and thus not illegal) and the other countries could claim that they had not approved the war; it was effectively a nominal nod to the power of the security council to decide which wars are legal.

Not quite, no. While it was deplorable on one level, it also was done so as to ensure later legitimacy. Kind of like how in Marbury v. Madison, the Supreme Court was very careful not to give an order it wasn't sure would be followed. Sometimes an institution does something nominal in the face of might it may not be able to stop (or cannot stop) in order to increase the chances of success in other actions it takes at a later time. Might does not "make right," but it does mean that someone who claims to h

For those who are historically unaware, the doctrine of anticipatory self-defense was NOT originated by the U.S. In fact, the U.S. was on the receiving end of the attack by the British known as "The Caroline incident" [wikipedia.org] that established anticipatory self defense as a part of international law. U.S. Secretary of State Daniel Webster eventually agreed that nations must have a right to take pre-emptive strikes in the event that "necessity of that self-defence is instant, overwhelming, and leaving no choice of means, and no moment for deliberation".

This is "the Caroline test" used to establish the validity of such strikes under international law, and it's not a trivial standard, as you suppose - simply claiming a need for self-defense is a far cry from satisfying the Caroline test. While this arguably supports actions such as an Israeli bombing of Iranian nuclear facilities, it clearly would not support actions such as those Obama took in his recent attacks on Libya. Without a credible threat, it's pretty hard to reach the bar set by the Caroline test...